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The Greens are calling for a parliamentary inquiry into a "secret deal" involving Attorney-General George Brandis and the West Australian Liberal Government over funds from Alan Bond's failed Bell Group.
The deal would have given the WA Government preference as a Bell Group creditor over others including the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which is owed $300 million.
Late last year, the WA Government passed legislation giving it the power to decide how to carve up a $1.75 billion Bell Group settlement, but the matter was quickly referred to the High Court over concerns it may have been unconstitutional.
According to a report in The West Australian, when those concerns were raised by a creditor in the High Court earlier this year, Senator Brandis instructed his then solicitor-general Justin Gleesonagainst running a particular argument effectively in support of those concerns.
But the deal was reportedly scuttled by Mr Gleeson, who wrote a scathing submission to the court on behalf of the ATO.
Australian Greens justice spokesman Nick McKim said if the claims about the Attorney-General were correct, it was a very serious matter.
"We've got a situation where if the reports are true, George Brandis has effectively instructed former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson to run dead in the High Court, and the effect of that of course would have been to deny the Commonwealth potentially up to $300 million of revenue that was due to the Australian Taxation Office," he said.
Allegations are 'the most serious' that Brandis has facedSenator McKim said a parliamentary inquiry was needed to get to the bottom of what appeared to be a "very murky affair".
read more:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-27/greens-call-for-parliamentary-inqu...
- By Gus Leonisky at 28 Nov 2016 - 12:31pm
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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he knows nofin'...
Labor senator Penny Wong says Attorney-General George Brandis has thrown "Joe Hockey under a bus" over the Bell Group debate.
Senator Brandis has addressed the Senate over the issue, saying that he had no knowledge of discussions between the former treasurer and the Western Australian Government.
read more:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-28/politics-live-november-28/8061344
chronically dysfunctional...
At the heart of the latest allegations swirling around George Brandis, the chronically dysfunctional first law officer, is the claim that he failed in his duty to protect the constitution and the revenue in order to perform a favour to political soulmates in the government of Western Australia.
That was what the West Australian newspaper said on Friday, in an useful article that tied together some of the loose strands still flapping in the wake of Brandis’ entanglement with the former solicitor general, Justin Gleeson.
If the allegation is true then it would be unconscionable for Brandis to remain attorney general.
It was asserted by the paper that Brandis instructed the solicitor general not to run an argument in the high court on behalf of the commissioner of taxation that would jeopardise legislation passed by the Western Australian parliament to close down the long-running Bell litigation, where creditors were fighting over the carve-up of assets from the carcass of Alan Bond’s corporate interests.
Instead of lawyers in court scrapping over money, the WA government wanted to take control and arrange its own scheme of distribution. This was of immediate concern to the commissioner of taxation, who was in line for $300m in unpaid Bell taxes and concerned that he would be at the mercy of bureaucrats in Perth.
The Bell Act sought to alter, impair and detract from the commonwealth’s ability to enforce the recovery of a tax debt.
Gleeson thought it was constitutional law 101 that the WA legislation ran foul of the conflict of laws provision of the constitution.
The Taxation Commission sought the solicitor general’s advice and was told there was an excellent chance the high court would find what the law men from the wild west had done was invalid, which it duly found in May this year.
READ MORE:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/29/four-questions-geo...